Bosses

Recently I finished reading the book “One night @ the call center” by Chetan Bhagat. Basically 6 people who work at a call center under a horrible boss gets a phone call one night that helps them to turn their life around. One of the thing that “God” said to the main character Shyam was something along the line of how if you work long enough under a horrible, manipulative boss, you are bound to lose all respect for yourself and therefore ultimately your confidence, which in turn makes you a doormat who becomes incapable of standing up for himself or protesting any injustice done to others.

Then as providence would have it …… I read the following articles online:

This actually got me thinking, given that in my current telecom company alone in the past 4.5 years I have had 9 different bosses, add to that another 5 years in Shipping with 4 different ones and 5 years in Garments with God knows how many bosses I have had… I have come across quite a few of my share of bad bosses. Even though I have blogged about almost everything else and a lot of good bosses and their positive influence, I have never tackled the subject of bad bosses.

I think bad bosses exist just like good bosses but the good ones outnumber the bad ones. If you are unfortunate enough to work for a really bad boss, then the only good advice would be to change your job before you are completely demoralized and lose all confidence in yourself.

Here’s something interesting … in three of the companies that I eventually left, it wasn’t just the bad management or the horrible boss who cinched the decision for me – it was HR which was unbearable and ultimately helped me to decide that I would be happier elsewhere. So while bosses are now admitting to playing favorites when determining promotions, you can not do much about it if the policies and the people (HR in particular) are not very interested in policing a bad boss affecting the company negatively.

Just remember one thing – it’s not personal – it is not you – and you alone fighting against a bad boss who is deeply ingrained in the company will only result in your own suffering. Instead have the wisdom to accept that which you cannot change and move on at the next available opportunity.

(This is in line with my theory of wasting as little time as possible on futile activities once it becomes clear that the result will not be as you want it to be)